


Let's Play Pretend

by AppalachianApologies



Series: Appalachian's 2020 Whumptober [16]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hallucinations, Hallucinogens, Hurt Spencer, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Schizophrenia, Spencer Reid Gets a hug!!!!!, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Whump, This isn't as emotional as some of my "emotional" fics are but it's still a big oof, Whump, Whumptober 2020, aka Appalachian hurts Spencer reid for like thirty straight days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27045391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppalachianApologies/pseuds/AppalachianApologies
Summary: The past case hasn't helped Spencer's fear of developing schizophrenia. Nope, it hasn't helped at all.Day 16: Hallucinations
Series: Appalachian's 2020 Whumptober [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948174
Comments: 28
Kudos: 200
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Let's Play Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends!! I kinda struggled with this prompt, and it was actually originally going to be for #22, but times are a changing. I don't know what that means, I don't know why I used that phrase. Anywayyyyyy, I hope you like this fic! Whumptober is slowly becoming a rushing river wherein I have to hold on to a bunch of floating logs so I don't get submerged and I'm slowly slowly getting overwhelmed from it ahahaaa
> 
> Enjoy! :D

It starts with a few scratches, here and there.

It turns into a few voices, but it’s only occasionally.

Spencer doesn’t think anything of it. Except that’s not true. It’s all Spencer can think of. He’s twenty seven, and he’s in prime real-estate for schizophrenia.

He tries to not think about it.

The last case involved a sociopathic unsub, his only wish to cause his victims to suffer before they inevitably die. It’s one of the reasons why it took years for the local detectives to realize they had a serial killer on their hands.

Each victim killed themselves.

The unsub drugged their victims day after day without their knowledge, making them paranoid beyond belief, living in a world of fear. After coming in contact with the unsub, the victims only lived for about a month. The longest victim lasted two months, and the shortest was just over a week.

The past few weeks have been filled with anxiety for Spencer. It’s no secret that cases involving schizophrenia, hallucinations, or paranoia hit him the hardest. This time, it was all three.

The constant anxiety from the case, the itching of dilaudid, and his age, all worked together. And then the weird scratches from the other room started.

Spencer spends the first night in a robe on the couch, curled up as tightly as his lanky body will allow.

Spencer pretends that his mom didn’t do the same exact thing when he was a kid.

He can hear books moving in his room, and he knows that if he goes in to check, everything will be in perfect condition. Books can’t move by themselves.

He chugs cup after cup of coffee, listening to invisible pages turn. Spencer’s surprised that his eyes aren’t bloodshot by the time morning comes.

Around four in the morning, Spencer wants to write to his mom. He wants to tell her that it’s happening, it’s finally happening, just like he always knew it would. Instead, he brews another pot of coffee and dresses for work.

He hears the blinds opening and closing, but when he looks over, they’re steady as always, string lying against the wall. 

Spencer stares at the same spot on the subway the entire time, trying not to think about the chance that everything he’s hearing is fake. For all he knows, Spencer could be imaging the entire world around him. Each of the yellow subway seats, those could all be fake. The homeless man who always,  _ always _ has today’s newspaper could simply be a fragment of his imagination.

He looks back down at the spot on the floor, and wills his peripheral vision to stop working. 

By the time Spencer reaches the BAU, he’s only a few seconds away from indulging in the panic attack that’s been trying to surface for the past sixteen hours.

Morgan immediately notices, pulling a concerned face. “Pretty boy, you alright?”

Sucking in a breath, he quietly answers, “Yes.” But what if Morgan never asked him that? What if he’s only imagining his friend being concerned about him? Hell, what if he’s still at home, curled up on the couch?

“Late night?”

“Something like that,” Comes the automatic response, brain falling back into the familiar pattern of words. 

“Get some coffee in you,” Morgan instructs, bringing his own mug to his lips.

Spencer just nods, grinding his teeth. He ducks his head, avoiding Morgan’s gaze, listening to a pitter patter that doesn’t exist, because it’s not raining.

It’s not raining.

It’s not raining, but he hears rain.

Instead, he listens to the coffee brew. That’s real, right?

But what if it’s not.

“Spencer,”

He whips his head around, eyes wide in fear. Only JJ calls him by his first name, and that’s a nickname. Nobody in the BAU calls him Spencer.

“Reid, you’re going to hyperventilate if you keep this up,”

Spencer swallows. He knows that voice, at least. “What?” He asks dumbly, finding Morgan’s concerned eyes.

Raising an eyebrow, the older man questions, “Are you sure you’re okay?” After Spencer only nods, he continues, “Nightmares?”

“Something like that,” He lamely reiterates.

Morgan gives him a sympathetic sigh. “I know that last case was hard on you,”

“I’m fine.” Spencer suddenly interrupts, fingers forming fists.

“Whoa, calm down,” Morgan chuckles, “I’m not claiming you’re not-”

Forcing his jaw to unlock, Spencer apologizes, “I know. I’m sorry. I just,” He waves awkwardly to the machine, “need coffee.”

Morgan nods, but doesn’t give up, “If it’s this bad, you can talk to Hotch-”

“No!” He nearly shouts, drawing the attention of a few probationary agents. Quieter, he adds, “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” Spencer then turns his full attention towards the coffee machine, watching the last bit drip into his cup.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Hotch, Spencer?”

The voice is back. 

Nobody calls him Spencer.

The team calls him “Reid,” JJ calls him “Spence,” his mom calls him “Crash,” and when he’s lecturing, he’s “Doctor Reid.”

“Already forgetting about me?”

Spencer takes a gulp of bitter coffee. He pours in spoonful after spoonful of sugar, trying his best to pretend that nothing else is going on with him.

His messenger bag is a familiar weight, until something in it starts moving.

Spencer’s brain says ‘subway rat,’ but the voice tells him, “It’s just a bunch of bugs. What’s wrong with that? Bugs have never bothered you before.”

Spencer slams his coffee cup down, liquid sloshing, and some falling out. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Morgan gives him a look. Spencer stops himself from running out of the room, heading straight to the bathroom.

Instead, he hastily walks.

“You can’t run away from me,”

Spencer clenches his teeth, and double checks to make sure there’s no one in any of the stalls. “Like you ran away from me?” He counters with venom.

Gideon laughs. “I’m glad you finally realized that it’s me.”

“How could I not?”

“You weren’t paying attention to me earlier today,”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “That’s because you’re not real.” He points out.

“Still.” Gideon starts. “You’re usually so protective of your books. I thought you’d be bothered that I was going through them.”

At least Spencer has answers to the things he’d been hearing this morning.

No, wait. That’s not the answer. The answer is that he’s hallucinating. It doesn’t matter which specific hallucination was flipping through his books.

Spencer’s splashing water on his face when Gideon points out, “You used to love our time together, Spencer. What happened?”

Looking at his sunken cheekbones through the mirror, Spencer tells himself, “No one is here. It’s just me. My brain is just trying to trick me. I’m alone.”

“Okay, now that’s just not fair,” A feminine voice nags.

Spencer looks around the room from the mirror, but nobody else is there. Not even Gideon. Which he isn’t surprised about, because Gideon was never here.

The feminine voice advises, “You, uh, you might want to check your bag there,”

Looking down, he sees moving lumps through the leather of his beloved messenger bag. He quickly tears open the buckle, finding a colony of cockroaches, making a nest out of old papers.

Without thinking twice, Spencer instantly pulls the strap off of his shoulder, letting the bad drop on the floor. His heart beats into his throat when no bugs scurry out. 

It’s because it’s not real. Logically, Spencer knows that it’s not real.

But they’re still moving.

“I used to collect bugs,”

“Tobias?” Spencer asks, stupidly checking the stalls for a voice, for a  _ person _ that doesn’t exist.

“I used to collect bugs,” He continues, “When my dad would leave me for days, alone in the rain, I’d collect bugs. I thought you’d understand.”

Breath catching in his chest, Spencer mutters, “You’re not real, you’re not real,”

“Pretty boy?”

This time when Spencer turns around an actual person is there to greet him.

Nearly hyperventilating, Spencer chokes out, “Morgan, it’s, it’s,”

“Hey, Reid, breathe,” He instructs, taking a few steps forwards.

Unable to trick his own brain any longer, Spencer struggles out, “It’s happening,”

“What’s happening, Reid?” When he doesn’t answer, Morgan continues questioning, “Are you hurt? Do I need to get Hotch? JJ?

Through panicked breaths Spencer admits, “I knew it was going to happen, I did. I knew it,”

“What? What’s happening, Reid?”

“The voices.” Spencer crumbles, head crashing down into his inviting palms. “Just like my mom,” He adds, breathlessly.

Morgan is silent for only a few seconds, but that’s enough for Spencer to fall even further. When he starts to tremble, Morgan gently takes Spencer’s arms and slowly brings him down to the bathroom floor.

“Reid,” Morgan tries to soothe, “It could just be from the past case,”

“You don’t understand,” Spencer sobs.

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

Saliva pooling in his mouth, he cries out, “I couldn’t,”

Swallowing, Morgan states, “I’m gonna go get Hotch, okay?”

“No,” Spencer quietly insists. “I need someone, someone who’s  _ real. _ ”

Morgan nods. “Okay. I’m just gonna text him, okay? We’re gonna figure this out, I promise, pretty boy. I promise.”

Tears streaming freely down his face, Spencer gulps, “I tried to stop it, I tried so hard,”

Not knowing what else to do, Morgan quietly shushes him, and holds Spencer close. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

A few seconds later, the bathroom door opens to reveal Hotch. Spencer doesn’t even look up.

Glancing between the two agents on the floor Hotch quietly asks, “Panic attack?”

Morgan gulps, shaking his head. “There’s a chance he could’ve gotten dosed from the last case,” Hotch’s face blanches, but Morgan continues, “If not, then,” He looks at Spencer’s shaking form, and doesn’t have it in him to finish the sentence.

The unit chief takes it in stride, and after a quick breath he muses, “Alright. I’m going to get a medic down here, and we’re going to go from there.”

Spencer can feel his own brain begin to dissociate, but at this point, he nearly welcomes it. His psyche could be falling apart, but he doesn’t want to be aware of it. He’s completely fine just focusing on a single tile, everything else blurring out of focus. 

Mutely, he watches blood being drawn from his elbow, and Tobais says something from the third stall down, but it goes through Spencer’s ears all muffled. His brain has created a protective layer of invisible foam, enabling Spencer to stay dissociated through it all.

He blinks once, and he’s standing up. He blinks twice, and he’s walking. After the third blink, he’s on the couch in Hotch’s office.

Morgan’s by his side the entire time, rubbing a comforting hand over his back and shoulder, the only thing stopping him from going full catatonia. Spencer doesn’t know if he’s grateful or annoyed from that fact.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years all pass within the span of a few milliseconds.

“You’re going to be just fine, pretty boy.” Morgan says softly, somehow cutting through Spencer’s protective fog.

After twenty six hours of consciousness, that single sentence allows him to finally succumb to unconsciousness.

*

To his surprise, Spencer eventually wakes up.

There’s an IV in his arm, and before he can comprehend what he’s doing, Spencer reaches over to rip it out. A warm hand finds him first.

“Morgan?”

“Don’t take that out,” He instructs, nodding to the needle.

“What’s in it?”

A soft smile coming to his face, Morgan answers, “Just saline.”

The world and its past all comes flooding back to Spencer. His breathing picks up, but luckily Morgan is there to assuage his fears.

“Take a deep breath, Reid,”

Somewhat failing the request, Spencer asks, “What happened?”

“The unsub dosed you, back in San Francisco, with his compound of serotonergic psychedelics.”

Shaking his head, Spencer counters, “That doesn’t make sense. If that were true, I would’ve been displaying symptoms earlier, Morgan, you know that.”

Quietly, Morgan replies, “We thought about that too,”

“And?”

“The doctors think that you built up a bit of resistance because of dilaudid.”

Not knowing any other way to respond, Spencer settles with, “Oh.”

The two sit in silence for nearly thirty seconds until they both break it at the same time.

“Lysergide-”

“I was-”

They both look at each other nervously, until Morgan quickly expresses, “You go first.”

Swallowing, Spencer continues, “Lysergide has a series of long lasting symptoms, some of them including system inhibitors becoming damaged from the activation of 5-hydroxyprtamine, which can result in perceptual disturbances, even after the drug isn’t present in the body, especially in those with or predisposed to an existing mental condition, including but not limited to-”

“Reid.” Morgan interrupts, stopping the tangent before Spencer gives himself a panic attack. “You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”

Spencer looks down. “That’s the thing though. There’s no way to know.”

“You’re always going to be okay, pretty boy,” Morgan counters. “I promised you.”

They continue to sit in silence, but it’s a bit more comfortable this time around. Eventually, Spencer confesses, “I was really scared, Morgan.”

Putting pressure on Spencer’s shoulder, Morgan nods. “You’re okay now,”

“I don’t want to have schizophrenia,” Spencer gulps, so quiet that Morgan barely hears it.

“I know, pretty boy. I know.”

Biting the side of his lip, Spencer asks, “Does that make me a bad person?”

“What? No,”

“I know that there’s nothing wrong with having schizophrenia, I just,” Spencer swallows before continuing, “Don’t want it.”

“You’re okay,” Morgan reiterates, unsure of how to soothe his fears.

“I was so scared. I was terrified, Morgan. I thought this was it. Does that mean I’m a bad person?”

Morgan raises his eyebrows. “For not wanting to be schizophrenic? No.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Spencer insists, still trying to prove a point to Morgan. To himself.

“I know.” Morgan promises. “It’s okay to be scared. But you’re okay now.”

The side of Spencer’s lip hikes up, and after a few moments he continues, “What if schizophrenia develops for me later?”

“Then we’ll be with you the entire time.” Morgan answers without a second thought. “You’re our family, Reid. We wouldn’t just leave you.” Despite Spencer’s dislike for touch, when Morgan wraps his arms around the smaller form, Spencer sags into the touch, resting his head against Morgan’s chest.

For the first time in what feels like a week, Spencer finally lets his jaw unclench. There’s so many things that Spencer wants to say, so many ways he wants to express his love for his family, but instead he settles with a heavy, “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I learned about hallucinogenic drugs [here!](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/drug-profiles/lsd_en)
> 
> I have a lot of fun talking with you all!! If you'd like, come talk with me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/appalachianapologies) (AppalachianApologies) if you'd like! I'm always so down to meet new people :D
> 
> I love you all very much, and I hope you all are doing okay. If you find yourself in a bad or scary situation, here are some hotlines (Please keep in mind that the written out numbers are US hotlines)
> 
> National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673  
> National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
> 
> If you don't live in America and need someone to talk to, here's a list of [international hotlines.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines)  
> You are not alone, and I love you all <3
> 
> Much love to all of you, and take care until tomorrow!! <3


End file.
